Two More Years
by April56
Summary: Theodore Nott: clever Slytherin loner whose name has been down to be a death eater ever since he was born. In seventh year, the teachers assign Hermione the task of swaying his alliances. TNHG ignores HBP


Theodore Nott: clever Slytherin loner whose name has been down to be a death eater ever since he was born. In seventh year, the teachers assign Hermione the task of swaying his alliances. TNHG ignores HBP

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing

This story is in tribute to one of HP fan fiction's least recognised characters. Well I think that he is. Theodore Nott sounds from the little that I know about him to be quite interesting. J.K. Rowling wrote a little bit about him on her website while I was looking up the release of the next book and I was pretty intrigued.

'Raised by a very elderly widower and death eater father, Theodore is a clever loner who does not feel the need to join gangs, including Malfoy's.'

It also describes him as being somewhat cleverer than Malfoy.

I also realised that as he is probably an only child, who would he have had when his father went into Azkaban? In this fan fiction, Avery represents the guardian who Theo might have had to put up with.

Although Rowling has insisted that Theo would want to be a loner, at some point people start taking interest, and although at first the loner may shun them, you can bet that in every self-imposed loner out there, almost every single one of them is actually begging for acceptance.

I have discounted the sixth book, so at the present time the wizarding world is stuck in a sort of limbo, Voldemort has risen, but the war hasn't begun yet.

Criticism welcome but please don't be too mean, this is the first story that I have posted.

TWO MORE YEARS

It was cold. But it always was, the dungeons seemed to be permanently frozen, the stone walls like chunks of ice tearing the warmth from bare hands and feet, the Slytherin common room was warmer than the surrounding corridors mainly due to the roaring fire place and the jostling bodies. It was a Sunday night and the Slytherin seventh years had commandeered the area around the fire as usual, pushing younger students out of the way, the shivering first years sat on the outskirts of the room, huddling together and trying to avoid attracting attention, and he remembered how even Malfoy in his first year had avoided trouble and kept his head down amongst the older students.

Malfoy sat a sofa with Pansy Parkinson on one arm, and her friend Daphne Greengrass on the other, he was talking at the top of his voice to Blaise Zabini who was exchanging covert looks with Greengrass all the while, indicating that he would much rather be upstairs in the boys' dormitories with her instead, and someway away sat Crabbe and Goyle next to Millicent Bulstrode and Tracey Davis. There were clear reasons for their segregation, Malfoy liked Zabini because, although he was smart enough to make jokes and be entertaining, he didn't surpass Malfoy himself. Parkinson was the only Slytherin girl that Malfoy wanted as her blood was the purest, and Greengrass was pretty and always coupled with Zabini. However Bulstrode was both un-attractive and dull and therefore was reduced to sitting with Crabbe and Goyle and guffawing stupidly with them at Malfoy's jokes. Davis was pretty and outgoing but a recent fight with both Parkinson and Greengrass had forced her to socialise with Bulstrode. She was glaring at the group angrily.

Theodore Nott was glad that he could never be seen by anyone as one of their number. But there would always be a place for him there, if he decided that for this year he wanted in. Malfoy had always made that painfully clear. Their fathers were associates, and Theo had been expected by his father to be Malfoy's friend, just as Lucius Malfoy had expected Malfoy to befriend Theo. Both Crabbe and Goyle lacked the brains to pass as a best friend for Lucius Malfoy's son. But when they had got to school, Theo had made it perfectly clear that he did not want to be in Malfoy's gang, and indeed they were well-balanced without him, there were eight of them, with an equal boy-girl ratio. If Theo was in their gang someone would always be the odd one out. To Theo's immense surprise Malfoy had not taken offence at Theo's lack of responsiveness and as soon as he realised that Theo had no intention to be anyone's friend, he simply took it in his stride. Since Theo was as pure as Malfoy, there would always be friendship offered, but Theo didn't want it, how could he? To be a mindless boulder like Crabbe or Goyle laughing thoughtlessly at Malfoy's jokes, Theo had endured over six years of solitude and he didn't know what it would be like to be tied to people anymore. Of course that wasn't saying that occasionally he didn't thirst for companionship, especially when he saw groups of friends laughing with each other or looking after one another, but he knew that this was his choice, so he didn't mind so much. But he did belong in Slytherin, he was arrogant, he knew he was brilliant, his school reports were filled with words like 'potential', and 'intelligent' with the more vindictive teachers simply using 'lazy' as their favourite. He knew he was brilliant and that he didn't have to work hard to pass his exams so he saw it as a waste of effort, the only subjects he liked were Transfiguration and Arithmacy, but he was good at everything. He stood up casually picking up his pack of exploding snap as he went.

"Goodnight Nott." Zabini muttered and turned back to Malfoy who simply nodded at him.

Theo nodded back at them. He made his way to the staircase, the younger students moving out of the way fearfully as he passed. He sighed, he used to be able to weave in and out of them without any of them noticing, but he was no longer as small as he used to be. He'd grown and now towered over them, and it annoyed him, he used to be able to blend in, never stand out but that was when he had been the shortest in his year. His father had promised that he would grow and now he had, he wished that he hadn't. He was still lean and wiry, and he felt slightly stretched, he hadn't even realised that he had grown until he had come back to school and had been able to look Malfoy in the eye without craning his neck. They had never been the same height before, he had got a real shock when everything seemed smaller. The last first year jumped away from him fearfully as he mounted the stairway leading down to the dormitories. He cast one long look at the shadowy dormitory instinctively checking for intruders before beginning to unpack. He had two years of freedom left, two more years of childhood, of happiness before he fell into the darkness. The truth be told he was scared stiff of the looming future and obsessed over the time he had left.

Theo was awoken to swear words and shouts as his four room mates woke up, he groaned and shoved a pillow over his head attempting to block out the noise.

"Come on Nott, wake up or you'll miss class." Zabini leapt over the room, half dressed and poked Theo in the back. Theo groaned but Zabini only responded cheerfully. "Come on, you know how deep Slytherin loyalty is, we could never let you miss class." he said half jokily, half serious.

"Come on Nott, you'll loose house points." Malfoy said grouchily. Theo sat up and yawned hugely and crawled out of bed.

His first class was Potions, and he wandered down the corridor to meet the other three Slytherins that took the subject. Malfoy was waiting for him and he smirked as Theo approached, behind him stood Greengrass: Zabini's girlfriend and Davis. Malfoy ignored both of them, and as Theo approached he caught a Ravenclaw girl staring at him and scowled at her, he hated being noticed. He watched as Malfoy sneered at Harry Potter and his two friends, Granger and Weasley, and rolled his eyes as Potter and Malfoy stepped towards each other aggressively. When he refocused his eyes on the scene he found that Granger was giving him an amused look, she had clearly seen his eye roll. He narrowed his eyes at her and looked back to the conversation between Malfoy and Potter.

"…you keep talking I might be forced to." Potter was growling.

"Oh dear Potty. You shouldn't make threats now, dear little Sirius won't like that. Oh I forgot he's dead!" Malfoy feigned surprise. Davis laughed loudly and Greengrass sniggered. Theo didn't bother.

"You'll be the one who's dead next." Potter warned.

"Somehow I doubt that, the Dark Lord will not fail to kill you next." Malfoy said suddenly serious. Theo felt his skin crawl as his future master's name was mentioned. He knew he couldn't stop his future 'career' but he was secretly dreading the eventuality. He was seventeen and he had two more years until his initiation. The Dark Lord didn't really believe in death eaters who weren't at least two years older than when they come of age. Theo watched as Potter faltered, and the look upon Malfoy's face grew malicious.

"Shut up Malfoy!" Weasley exploded. "Stay and play with your dumb death eater friend." he gestured to Theo, who stiffened on the insult upon his intellectual abilities.

"Nott, dumb?" Malfoy sneered. "You're a fine one to talk. Weasley you can barely add together and you call him dumb?"

"I didn't mean that, Malfoy." Weasley's expression grew cruel. "I meant dumb as in wordless, does he ever talk?" Weasley sneered looking at Theo dangerously. Theo's heart was racing and his fingers itched to move towards his wand.

"Careful Weasley." Theo sneered, and realised it was the first time he had spoken all morning, maybe the ugly red-head had a point, he didn't bother talking much.

"Wow, it speaks!" Weasley said tauntingly and Theo's fingers brushed against the firm wood of his wand, but he held himself back using all his self-restraint. Malfoy was eyeing him warily. "I though that you had been struck dumb by Nott Senior being dragged off to Azkaban, I bet he's rotting away there." The muscles in Theo's jaw tightened, he was reliving the last time he had seen his father, it had been in Azkaban and it had not been pleasant. Theo watched as all the other students watched as Weasley baited him, he knew they were all wondering how he would react. "Apparently they go insane within a few weeks. Is it true?" Theo's fingers clenched around his wand impulsively and before Potter could even scream a warning he had pulled it out and with a flash of light he performed the first spell that came to mind. There was a burst of black smoke and several shouts of:

"What spell did he use?"

"What's happening?"

"Nice one Nott, whatever it was."

And through the smoke came a bellow, Theo smirked and cleared the smoke with a single flick of his wand. Where Weasley had been a large, fat walrus lay. It blinked stupidly and struggled on the floor helplessly a mass of grey blubber. It look up most of the width of the corridor. Theo smirked harder, it was a nice piece of Transfiguration, even if he said so himself. Malfoy began the laughter and soon enough all the Slytherins and quite a few of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were also laughing. Theo lounged back on the wall, flourished his wand and was preparing to transfigure Weasley back into a boy.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Theo immediately stuffed his wand back into his pocket and lolled against the wall. He would probably get away with this, he after all was not the usual perpetrator. Professor McGonagol was hurrying along the corridor and she slid to a stop before the group and surveyed the walrus struggling along the floor, she stared at it confused.

"What is going on here?" she asked with a voice of steel. Her eyes looked along to Granger.

"My friend Ron got transfigured into a walrus." she said calmly and Theo noticed how she hadn't mention his name. McGonagol froze and stared at Hermione and then dropped the books she was carrying and jerked her wand out of her pocket. Quick as a flash Weasley replaced the walrus, he was groaning and he stood up rather quickly and looked around himself.

"Mr Weasley, who did this to you?" McGonagol asked and she actually sounded slightly curious. Weasley turned to Theo angrily and advanced upon him, but Theo allowed his hand to stray to his wand and Weasley stopped dead and turned back to McGonagol.

"Nott. He did it." McGonagol looked at Theo incredulously.

McGonagol's office was bare and bleak, but it seemed fitting for the stern and cold teacher. The colour of red was over-bearing and brash in Theo's eyes and he curled his lip in disgust, McGonagol sat down and stared at him expectantly. Theo stared back but their gaze was broken when the door slammed open and Professor Slughorn entered the office.

"Miss Granger told me something about Mr Weasley and a walrus…she sounded confused." Slughorn said. McGonagol tightened her lips.

"Mr Nott performed a transfiguration spell that transformed Mr Weasley into a walrus." her voice was dry. Slughorn sneered at Theo's name and Theo sneered back just as viciously.

"Are you sure it was him?" Slughorn muttered. McGonagol ignored him and turned back to Theo.

"HAVE YOU ANY IDEA HOW DANGEROUS THAT WAS? IF YOU HAD GOT THE SPELL WRONG YOU COULD HAVE PERMENANTLY DAMAGED MR WEASLEY …" she suddenly exploded at Theo, but he had been expecting it and focussed hard on a spot behind her head and pretended not to be listening. It generally worked, teachers saw no point in shouting if their victim wasn't even paying attention. She finally lowered her voice.

"Why did you feel the need to curse Mr Weasley?" she asked angrily. Theo tightened his lips and scowled at her.

"He…provoked me." Theo said in a strained manner.

"How exactly?" Slughorn asked, suddenly seeming to wake up as he also had tuned out to McGonagol's shouting session.

"He insulted my father." Theo said stiffly. He watched as McGonagol exchanged a dark look with Slughorn. The transfiguration professor suddenly turned back to him.

"Where did you learn such advanced transfiguration anyway? Who taught it to you?" McGonagol asked shooting Slughorn another look. Theo tensed and bit his lip angrily, he knew where this was going.

"If you are being pressured to …become involved in the war…you can always talk to us about it." Slughorn said. Theo bit his lip again, he still had two more years, two more years. But acting on impulse he stepped forward and roughly pulled the material of his left sleeve up and bared his forearm to his two teachers.

"See, happy now." Theo said furiously.

"We weren't suggesting…" Slughorn stammered.

"Oh of course you weren't." Theo snarled and sat down heavily.

"So how do you know advanced transfiguration then?" McGonagol said.

"Come on! You've preformed similar spells in class and I read. Transfiguration happens to be one of my favourite subjects." Theo said dully.

"You mean …you weren't taught by anyone?" Slughorn sighed. "Please Theodore, do not lie to us." Theo sighed.

"As I remember you always put intelligent but lazy in my reports?" Theo said a trace of a smirk playing on his lips.

"But this level…" Slughorn shook his head.

"Advanced Transfiguration: vir- bestia switching spells and onwards. Page one hundred and eighty-eight." Theo said blandly and scowled at McGonagol. She frowned at him and stood for a moment puzzling for a little while.

"Yes…" she said nodding.

"I'm not stupid." Theo said and scowled yet again.

"This interesting revelation has given me an idea." McGonagol said looking pleased with herself. "We are starting a …coaching club for the sixth years. We are picking out the two most talented transfigurators from seventh year, so far we only have one, but I think that it would be an appropriate punishment to make you the second student."

"You've got to be kidding!" Theo exclaimed but then he sighed. "Who's the other student?"

"Ah, I think that can be a surprise." McGonagol was smiling harder.

Please Review

April56


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